


Put on a Happy Face

by runrarebit



Series: Altered Trajectory [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, All pairings are past or contemplated, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Depression, Dyslexia, Dyslexic Steve Harrington, F/M, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Homophobic Slurs, Internalized Homophobia, Lonely Steve Harrington, M/M, Multi, Navel-Gazing, Parental emotional abuse, Sad Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve is scared of Billy, ableist slurs, beginning of season 03, internalized ableism, mention of sex acts of both the m/f and m/m variety, mentions of Neil Hargrove and his abusive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:04:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: Set at the beginning of Season 03, since apparently I wanted to take a stroll in Steve's head after taking a stroll in Billy's for"Altered Trajectory".Steve Harrington is not happy, not that he wants anyone to know.





	Put on a Happy Face

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For ableism, internalised ableism and use of ableist slurs, as well as internalised homophobia, homophobia and use of homophobic slurs. Both retard and fag will make an appearance in this fic, mainly self-directed by Steve but also used by others(including his father) towards him. Also parental emotional abuse and some mention of Neil Hargrove, so just general child abuse probably. Also depression.
> 
> So, again this is not what I was supposed to be doing, but I'm feeling ill today and somehow I have used that to justify to myself writing amazingly, stunningly self-indulgent angst fic instead of working on anything original. Thank you to everyone who read my last Stranger Things fic, and for the comments and kudos, I really appreciate it and hope you enjoy this one too!

It’s the same most mornings— if he manages to fall asleep properly. The alarm goes off and he waits for someone to turn it off— sometimes even calls out for Tom or Carol or even _Nancy_ — but eventually reality makes its way through his thick head and he’s forced to deal with it himself. He sits up in bed then, for a bit, before he can make himself get up. Deal with it.

Every one of his footsteps echoes through the empty halls. His parents are off again— his dad’s got a conference, his mom’s got her vigilance, the endless drive to make sure it never gets serious enough with one of his women. She’s not going to end up a divorcee. She’s been saying that since before he knew what it meant. He is alone, but that’s good.

It is good.

 _Better_ , at least. Things with his dad are— well, worse than ever before, and that’s saying something. His dad’s an ass— he reminds himself it’s not as bad as it could be. After everything that happened, _Hargrove_ , he ended up overhearing Max telling Lucas a bit about how her stepdad treats him. His dad’s never hit him, so he’s just— he’s _sensitive_. Stupid. A disappointment.

At least his dad lets him stay in the house, even if the man’s not giving him an allowance anymore. Even if he has to pay his own way. Pay the bills that come in while his parents are out of town. Buy his own food—

He has to be careful with money for the first time in his life. It doesn’t help that his parents won’t let him drain the pool, shut it off— even though he doesn’t use it anymore— so he has to pay for that too. _He has to pay—_

The first thing he does every day is have a shower so he can let his hair air dry a bit while he’s having breakfast before he blow dries it the rest of the way and styles it. Some days he thinks of getting it cut. Just shaving it all off— but someone might ask questions and they’re not questions he can answer so he doesn’t. He’s not sure why he keeps maintaining it though, hidden the way it is under that stupid hat. He knows he’s got nice hair, has been told his entire life— it’s the one thing no one’s ever criticised him about.

Yeah, one day he’ll shave it all off.

He’s fine. Great. Everything’s great. It is.

The house is so empty— it doesn’t help that Dustin’s off on that camp thing. Persistent little shit always comes around otherwise. The other kids don’t really show up much these days, just seem to use him for ice cream and a way into the cinema. It’s summer though. Summer— and El and Mike are tangled up in each other the same as Max and Lucas.

It’s not that he misses that, it’s just that he misses that. Nancy sometimes, but he and Nancy never really were— What he misses is Tommy and Carol, even though they can be pretty terrible people and they bring out the worst in him— and he’s got a lot of _worst_. It’s just that he’s kind of thinking he mishandled some of that but he doesn’t know how to fix it. Isn’t sure it can be fixed. If it should be fixed.

They came into Scoops Ahoy the other day and Tommy laughed at him. Said he looked like a loser, like a _retard_ — yeah. Things probably aren’t fixable now. At least Tommy didn’t call him a faggot again— not that he really had, except he kind of did, and didn’t he do what the other wanted? Get a girlfriend? Then Tommy became such a pissy bitch about Nancy—

He’s trying to self-justify.

Before he leaves the house each morning he checks himself over in the mirror, looking for the cracks, the flaws. Big smiles, big hair, white teeth, everything’s _fine_.

It’s not like he actually answered to _Retard_ when his dad called him that instead of his name the last time his folks were in town. Except he did. He did and he can’t tell anyone. He did and Tommy called him a retard too. At least his dad has stopped calling him _Fag_. That’s what he gets for having no friends around to make the man suspicious, he’d guess.

He hates the stupid Scoops Ahoy uniform— but at least he doesn’t have to take the bus, doesn’t have to be seen out and about in it, just at work. The beemer was a present from his grandad, in his name, or else he’s pretty sure his dad would have confiscated it. He wants to keep his car, feels like he _needs_ to keep it, just in case everything does finally become too much and he ends up packing everything he can bear to keep into it one night and just— _leaving_. Which he won’t. Because everything’s _fine_. Good. Great. Fucking _dandy_.

It’s just that he’s all alone and has no friends other than sort of some weird kids and has no Nancy and no Tommy and no Carol and he’s an idiot, a _retard_ , and he’s ruined his whole life now and he can’t take it back. He really should have tried harder— but he’s been told that his entire life and it hasn’t helped. He’s just too stupid.

In some ways working with Robin is refreshing. He knows she thinks he’s an idiot because she makes it clear, so it’s not like he has to try so hard not to sink in her opinion. Except kind of, at the start, until he’d managed to memorise the menu, but he had managed to memorise the menu, even if he’d had to go over it again and again when he got back home. He needs to be able to remember it, because his particular brand of stupid has even more trouble than usual reading the shop’s official font. He _can_ read though. He’s not that much of a retard— it’s just. It’s _hard_. Because, yeah, he’s stupid.

It’s not like he doesn’t _try_. Except maybe not really. He hasn’t really tried so hard since showing up on the Byers’ front door to apologize and walking into— well, all of it. Sometimes it’s just like he can’t remember the way it feels if something really matters. It’s like going through life knowing how he’s supposed to be feeling but not actually _feeling_ it. So it’s hard, sometimes, to _try_.

Especially with things the way they are with Tommy and Carol, because back before it all fell apart— It’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it? The way he was with them. Back before, when it was _them_. Before Tommy laid down the law— that’s unfair. It wasn’t really like that. It’s just that things had gone too far and they weren’t, none of them were, it’s just— He really isn’t a fag, you know? He does like girls. He liked _Nancy_ , and before Nancy— He likes the way girls smell, taste, feel beneath his hands. He _likes_ girls.

He just misses the way Tommy used to touch him. Not just when all three of them were doing whatever it is they were doing. But when they’d all sit in a pile in the den and go over homework together. When both he and Carol would lean back against Tommy and Tommy would read out whatever reading they— no, _he_ had— and it’s not like he doesn’t know that’s cheating, or whatever, taking the easy road instead of struggling at it by himself. Same as getting either of them to check his spelling. Or talk through a paper he had to write so he could get his ideas straight before he actually got started. He’d just been trying to convince the universe he’s not as dumb as he is. Leaning on them, making them help him, trying to fool everyone—

Nancy had tried to help him when they were together, but it’s not as if he could bring himself to admit the scale of the problem, admit how stupid he really is, so she could only do so much. He already knew she was too good for him, was better than he deserved, and there was that whatever it was between her and Jonathan— and he’d been so embarrassed about it, especially since she’s so _clever_. Then, after being told he was bullshit, after finding out that the whatever it was between her and Jonathan was exactly what he’d always feared, after being _dumped_ — and her so very, very _sorry_. So sorry it’s like she can’t even talk to him anymore most of the time, not really, and he can’t tell if it’s the guilt or if after being with Jonathan like that she can see him for what he really is and doesn’t like the view— he didn’t even have her to help him out. No Nancy. No Tommy and Carol. No will to _try_. It’s a miracle he even graduated.

Some mornings, like this morning, he finds himself sitting behind the wheel of his car for a bit before he can bring himself to turn it on. He doesn’t even know why. _Big smile_ remember Stevie. Everything’s A-OK. He glances at himself in the rear-view mirror, grimaces, tries again. Big, big smile. A lot of white, white teeth. There, that’s better.

Was it really worth it?

The smile drops before he catches it. He tries to shake off the thought, the strange, ugly wish he has sometimes that he’d never even looked at Nancy Wheeler and thought _yes, a girl like that_. It’s like the stuff about Barb— he knows he wasn’t good enough, didn’t feel it enough, didn’t empathise enough with what Nancy was going through, but it’s not like she was his friend. Yes, it sucks that she essentially died in his pool. It sucks that she died at all. It sucks that she was Nancy’s best friend and—

He knows what Barb thought of him, ok, knows she thought he was an idiot and Nancy deserved better. They had an assignment together once back in middle school and Tommy and Carol had both been out with the flu and his parents had been home and so he’d had no one to help him and if his dad’s around it’s like he becomes even stupider than usual— it doesn’t matter how many times he reads whatever it is he’s supposed to be reading it just doesn’t make its way in, it’s like trying to hammer in a nail with a slice of cake, and he gets more and more worried that his dad’s about to come into his room and demand he read it out loud and then when he stumbles over the words his dad will say— so he _had_ done the reading, just couldn’t remember any of it, and when she asked him about it and he’d just mumbled some _stupid_ bullshit he can’t even remember now and she sighed and pretty much accused him of being too lazy and trying to make her do all the work and then suggested in a tone entirely too much like his dad’s that he do the reading he’d already _done_ before the next time they met up.

He might have bitched about her to Tommy and Carol when they got better and they might have been particularly horrible to her for a bit after that, but— no _buts_. He shouldn’t have done that. It’s not her fault he’s an idiot.

 _Smile Stevie_.

He does miss them. If he’d never gotten with Nancy they’d probably still be friends. _Just_ friends, because it was Tommy saying what he’d said that had made him start looking around for a proper girlfriend in the first place. It’s funny, he should remember the exact words, but he doesn’t. It’s like his head had filled with static at the time. The gist of it was that neither of them are fags, that Tommy doesn’t want his dad thinking he’s a fag— the whole _unlike what your dad thinks of you_ bit going unspoken— that things between all them were getting kind of intense, that Tommy is serious about Carol, that _he_ needs to get a girlfriend because it would be better for all of them and that way no one could start thinking anything about them all that was a little too— _true_.

Kind of. In a distorted way. Everyone would have probably decided that Carol was going with both of them and called her a slut, but that would have been bad enough. If anyone had realised the truth it would have been worse.

One last practise smile and he finally turns the key, starts the car. He’s going to go into work, get mocked by Robin, hit on girls— and even _he_ can’t tell if he’s deliberately striking out because he’s in no way ready for anything with anyone right now or if he just has become so much of a loser. He thinks he’s actually trying, because his ego has been feeling tragically delicate recently and he’s always felt a bit better with some confirmation of the fact that even though he may be dumb he’s still _pretty_.

He really doesn’t want to succeed though. It’s like he’s forgotten what to do with a girl, how to go on dates, how to go to parties, how to get a bit drunk and mess around with them for a while, before it’s time to go home— except by _home_ what he usually meant was back to his big old empty house with Tommy and Carol to drink a bit more, to all curl up asleep in his room, to wake up sometime in the middle of the night because the two of them were starting to mess around pressed against his side before he just— joined in.

Kind of. In the _real_ distorted way.

He has never fucked Carol, never fingered her, never eaten her out— has rubbed off on her when she was rubbing off on him, he will admit that, but their thing, all of their thing, wasn’t about him and Carol messing around together so much as him and Carol teaming up and messing around with Tommy. Not that things— when does it cross that line, the line that makes it, well, _gay_? Actually , there’s no point thinking about that, because the line was well and truly crossed the last time the three of them were together and he ended up sucking Tommy off— but _before_ that it was more kissing, rubbing off on each other sometimes, lending a hand— particularly when Tommy was buried face-first in Carol’s pussy.

He misses _Carol_ too. They used to joke around together, cuddle up on the couch when Tommy was busy, and he used to help her pick out lingerie sometimes or plot out any elaborate seduction scenarios she had in mind for Tommy— she’d always try to get him involved too. Hell, it all started because all three of them were drunk and she wanted to watch him and Tommy kiss. She used to love to watch them make out, used to make her soak through her panties really quick.

A little bit of him blames her for that last time though. She’d gotten this weirdly skimpy jockstrap from somewhere— new, at least it was new— and she convinced him to try it on while they were waiting for Tommy to escape lunch with his aunt and come back. It had seemed kind of jokey at the time, him standing there in the stupid thing and a polo, bitching about how ridiculous he looked— and then Tommy had walked in and those dark eyes had gone almost _black_.

He doesn’t think they planned it, the two of them. He doesn’t think Tommy had any idea it was going to happen, or any clue what was going to happen next. He knows _he_ didn’t. There had been a lot of kissing, a lot of touching, and then, well, he ended up on his knees in front of Tommy and then Carol— His skin prickles, _heats_ , and he feels his cock twitch in his stupid fucking shorts. Up until that moment he didn’t even know that people could do what Carol had done to him, her tongue— maybe _she_ had planned it all. The jockstrap certainly gave her access for what she did.

Then both Tommy and Carol don’t show up for school for two days in a row and he can’t get either of them on the phone and the next thing he hears is Tommy telling him he wants it all to stop. All of it. Not just the _touching_ , but even the staying the night at his place most nights. Then he met Nancy and—

Tommy even teamed up with Hargrove against him.

Now that’s a can of worms he isn’t even going to think about.

Sometimes he has nightmares about Billy Hargrove killing him, but that’s aside the point.

If what he overheard from Max is true then it sucks that Hargrove has to go through that, but still. Still. How embarrassing is it that sometimes he thinks he’d rather face down a fucking _demodog_ than have to set eyes on Billy Hargrove ever again? Which has been ok so far. The other guy seems to be trying to avoid him just as much as he is.

Fucking psycho.

Fucking—

_What’s so good about being **King** anyway?_

What did it ever earn him? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The disintegration of everything. Of himself. Of—

And then, when he knows he’s skating down that razor’s edge he eventually cut himself on, when he’s trying desperately to cling to Nance and feeling her slipping away moment by moment, this fucking douchebag psycho _asshole_ starts— he doesn’t even know what it was at the beginning. Part of him kept insisting it was very aggressive _flirting_ , which had been— well, that was something, wasn’t it? Being flirted with by a guy. A _hot_ guy. He didn’t really know how to feel about that, except kind of bad for Hargrove and also annoyed because he hadn’t wanted to be flirted with, not by anyone, not with things with Nancy— with _Tommy and Carol_ — the way they were.

Anyway, he was wrong. Hargrove just obviously wanted to murder him for some reason right from the start and he was stupid enough to get that wrong— in his defence though, who thinks some random hot guy who starts at their school and starts touching them like that, getting all up in their space, skin to skin, those fucking big, strong, _manly_ looking hands— anyway, a guy like that just wants to murder them out of nowhere?

Actually probably more guys than think the same random hot guy wants to fuck them. So, _vanity_ on his part he guesses. Or vanity and the whole—

Like, _is he a fag?_ Because he does like girls. A _lot_. But also—

Ah shit, there’s the mall. He glances in the rear-view mirror again. Time to smile. Everything’s fine. Good. Great.

Just fucking _great_.


End file.
